


Unforgettable

by sebviathan



Series: Untold Janitor Story [5]
Category: Scrubs
Genre: Cancer, Canon Compliant, F/M, Liver Cancer, M/M, Mental Illness, Near Future, Polyamory, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 01:33:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3709906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years have passed since J.D. left Sacred Heart and moved on to St. Vincent's. Fifteen years since the janitor told him his real name, cornered him in a closet, and confessed he'd been in love for eight years.</p>
<p>Fifteen years, and now Glen Matthews is a patient at his hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unforgettable

**Author's Note:**

> I did a fair amount of research before writing this, so I apologize for any significant inaccuracies regarding liver cancer that I might have overlooked. However, this does take place roughly 9 years into the future from now, so I'm allowed some liberties in guessing how the medical world will have changed. Scrubs takes place within a quasi-surrealistic universe anyway.
> 
> ALSO: This fic differs from the rest of the Untold Janitor Story in that it involves not only Glen's point of view, but also J.D.'s. It's essentially a life-after-death sort of story, so J.D.'s side of things is important.
> 
> This fic also has direct references to all of the other Untold Janitor Story fics, but the only one that you ABSOLUTELY need to read before this one is '5 times J.D. didn't understand.'

After about five years of running a hospital, J.D. genuinely understands that Kelso wasn't just being a dick for the hell of it all those years ago. Minus the blatant sexism and racism, his behavior was a reasonable reaction to stress.

Sure, things are easier now. Healthcare is now a constitutional human right—with a surprisingly small add-on to general taxes. While America is now twice as corporate-ruled as it was about ten years ago, private buildings at least have the option to use cheap, clean energy. The chairmen and women ( _chairpeople_? great, now he'll be thinking about anthropomorphic chairs for the rest of the day) he deals with aren't crusty old racists, but rather people from this generation.

But medical science is advancing so rapidly at this point that keeping up with it is literally impossible. Sure, the mass digitization of everything makes things easier—he doesn't have to commute for meetings and seminars since he can just use an interactive video chat—but they're still several times a week. It's a lot to take in, especially with his regular duties piled on.

Interns become more and more of a nightmare each year. Not because they get worse on their own, but rather that they're always the same. It's the same exact stuff every single year, and everything just blends together as time goes on. The annual repetition nearly drives him crazy.

Day-to-day, though, it's not so bad. Having a routine is stabilizing, now that he's got two teenagers, one in his rebellious prime and the other right  _about_  to hit that stage, both taking up his time at home regardless.

And most days (those without meetings, that is) start relatively the same: with J.D. perusing the list of currently admitted patients. Other than finding suitable patients to use in training new interns, he likes to be personally aware of the medical state of everyone in his hospital—if anyone has died or is in critical condition, if anyone has come out of a coma, that sort of thing. With the touch-screen setup he has at his desk, it takes hardly any time at all. Everything is also hooked up in real time, so if he wanted to, he could simply watch the condition of individual patients progress without even leaving his office.

On this particular day, a name on the list stands out to him. J.D. very nearly scrolls past it, eyes glazing over the name without immediate recognition—but then it hits him. And now he's staring at it, finding himself briefly incapable of motor control, and blinking rapidly to make sure his eyes aren't playing cruel tricks.

_Glen Matthews. Admitted: 20 hours ago. Sex: Male. Age: 59. Ailment:_ _Hepatocellular carcinoma. Current state: Stable and awake._

Part of him thinks there's no need to get his hopes up; it could easily just be another man with the same name. It isn't exactly uncommon, though he's never met anyone else with that name before...

He taps his name to access the file—and in the top left corner of the screen, there it is. Fifteen years' worth of wear on his face since J.D. last saw him, but it's  _definitely_  him.  _Holy shit, it's the janitor._

Once he snaps out of his awe, though still in a sort of emotional shock, he unthinkingly and almost immediately contacts the doctor in charge of Glen's case and tells her that he's taking over—which then puts her in the position of handling his interns for the day.

Dr. Miller has no attachment to the patient this early on, so she doesn't mind terribly, but naturally she does question it, seeing as he never does this. All he can tell her is that "the patient's an old friend."

Admittedly, J.D. is nervous. It only gets worse as he gets closer and closer to the janitor's—to  _Glen's_  room, because it's just been so long, and... what if he doesn't recognize him? God, that would make things awkward.

His anxiety causes him to walk right past the room before realizing he missed the door, then turning back. And then his excitement overrides all the nervousness and he forces himself to keep walking, to swipe his keycard and walk into the room—

And then he's right there. There's a woman, too, sitting next to him—that must be his wife, Lady. She makes eye contact before Glen does, promptly squeezing her husband's hand and making him look over.

Glen's about to ask what happened to the other doctor, but then he's hit with a powerful sense of familiarity, and he's frowning, wondering what exactly about this doctor is striking him so hard—but that only lasts a moment before his eyes widen in realization.

"...Ho- _oly shit_."

That's all he manages to say, though his mouth hangs open as he stares.

It feels similar to the time he met Harrison Ford. He's not exactly starstruck, but he simply can't believe it. He has to glance over to Lady just to make sure that she sees him too, and she nods in reassurance that it's all real. Probably the one thing that reassures him the most is the fact that he doesn't look exactly the same. His hair is more respectable, and his face is half-hidden by a beard. But it's definitely him.

Meanwhile J.D can't help but fixate on how different Glen looks. In a hospital gown and mildly jaundiced is a state he never expected to see the man in—good thing they can manually keep his bilirubin levels low, at least, or he'd be too yellow for comfort in this reunion.

And of course, this  _old_. The lines around his eyes are oddly defining, though. And while his hair is even far more salt than pepper, his hairline doesn't seem to have receded at all.

He honestly has no idea what to say. Glen summed up his thoughts pretty well, but—especially as his doctor—he has to say  _something_. So he forces out the first thing that comes to mind.

"Uh. Fancy seein' you here."

Wow. Same old cute, awkward J.D., Glen can't help but think.

And then Lady stands up before anything else can happen, grinning between them both.

"I'm gonna go get some coffee, let you two catch up."

They're both expecting the other to say something the moment the door shuts, and consequently continue staring at each other, unsure of how exactly to "catch up."

Finally, J.D. does the only thing he can think to do and goes into doctor mode.

"They, um—" he clears his throat, glances habitually down at his ipad. "They told me that you have liver cancer."

_They_  being Glen's file, but humanizing it makes him more comfortable.

"Yeah," Glen laughs in spite of himself. He's laughing more at the situation as a whole, really. "From, uh, drinking too much. And... not eating healthy, I guess. Lots of things. I'm old."

It's serious, though, J.D. thinks. It's  _cancer_. Not nearly as much as a death sentence as it used to be, but... Just, the fact that it's in an old more-than-a-friend. The way his concern's manifesting feels a bit surreal.

"They also told me that you're refusing chemo?" That, Dr. Miller actually did tell him personally.

Glen sighs, feeling J.D.'s gaze weighing on him. It's weird, actually having him as  _his_  doctor, as opposed to just... watching him from the sidelines. Not necessarily humbling, as he'll always have that image of the small, naive intern he used to bully, but just weird.

"Eh, I watched Lady's mom go through it," he tells him, offering the justification he didn't give the other doctor. "Seemed really painful. S'not worth it."

_I also refuse to lose any of my hair,_  he adds mentally.

The way J.D. looks at him then is sad, like he heard that last thought. But of course, as oblivious as the guy always was, he was also fairly empathetic. He really  _cared_  about everything. It was one of the things Glen initially fell for in spite of his own personality—and as the doctor walks towards him, explaining some medical stuff he doesn't care for, that's all he can think about.

"Well, the only other option to try to shrink the tumors is radiation, which will still be pretty taxing. You'll be nauseous, and bloated, and sleeping even more than you are now..." He opens the x-rays on Glen's file and frowns—first down at his ipad, then at Glen himself. "Your cirrhosis is really bad, so I can expect it'll take at least a month of radiation treatments until we can reasonably expect to be able to operate, whether it's a transplant or—"

And then he notices that Glen has been vaguely smiling at him this whole time, brows furrowed slightly and in a way that doesn't look at all like he's been listening. Once J.D. stops talking, something lights up in Glen's eyes that make it obvious that that's what he was waiting for.

"What is this?" he asks demandingly, still staring at the doctor's face.

"What?"

" _This_." He gestures to J.D.'s beard like it's some strange phenomenon, immediately grabbing it ( _Jesus, it's thick_ ) and tugging it a bit left so he can turn his head and examine the rest of it.

" _Ow_ _—_!" Even as a man in his late forties, he has to stop himself from saying  _owies_. "You know, you can't do this kind of thing to me, anymore. I'm a Chief of Medicine now."

Glen steers him by the beard to face him again, but doesn't let go. "I don't like it. Your face looks better without the scruff." God, he's nagging like a grandpa.

"It makes my face look more defined!" J.D. insists with a whine. It's cuter than it should be.

Now he's just staring again, not saying anything. Still not letting go of the beard, either. And smiling at him like before, but... softer. So soft that J.D. can only remember one other time ever seeing him like that, and it was his very last day at Sacred Heart. It leaves him with only one good move forward, which he does without further hesitation.

He leans down and kisses him, and Glen accepts it, maintaining his grip on J.D.'s scruff and breathing him in like fresh air.

It feels like something they've been waiting for since the moment J.D. stepped into the room. And they think of the last time they kissed, how it was essentially the  _only_  other time and fifteen years ago—and with all that time in between it feels like there's a missing piece to this puzzle, at least for J.D. there is, but it still feels right. Like he needs it. Possibly just as much as Glen does.

When the door creaks open less than half a minute later, it takes a second for it to register. As soon as it does, J.D. jerks away from Glen's face so fast that some of his beard hairs are ripped straight out.

He starts to frantically (and tearfully, as he's actually now in a lot of pain) apologize for kissing her husband, but Lady only looks mildly surprised and not at all angry.

"Oops, sorry if that was a really important moment I just interrupted—here, honey, I got you some muffins in case you get hungry. I can stay if you want—"

"Nah, it's fine," Glen tells her casually, while J.D. stares, dumbfounded. "You can go home. The dogs'll get lonely."

Lady then sets the muffins down on his bedside drawer and gives him a quick peck on the lips, and within the minute she's gone again. J.D. looks back and forth between the door and Glen's shit-eating grin.

"So—she's... okay with it?"

Glen finds his confusion ridiculously amusing, so he lets him stew in it for another few seconds before explaining.

"Yep. She was the first person I ever told about... y'know.  _You_. She understands everything about me, and it's amazing. I love her to death, and... well, that's enough. Me loving someone else too doesn't change that."

J.D. immediately notices the present tense. Not  _loved_ _—_ not in the past at all. It's still there.

Glen notices him noticing and doesn't feel the need to clarify. There's no need to talk about what they both know: Neither of them had any idea they would even see each other again after J.D. left. In fact, Glen had felt positive that he wouldn't. But when you spend eight whole years in love with someone... that just doesn't end.

But now he feels bad. Oh God, he feels so bad. Of course he was never going to get over J.D., but at least he'd had the comfort of a real, solid goodbye. There'd been as much closure as he could have realistically hoped for. He wasn't supposed to ever see him again, especially not fifteen years later where he'd be in a hospital bed and J.D. would be the one kissing  _him_ , and God fucking  _dammit_  he feels like he's falling in love with him all over again.

His entire marriage has been filled with a vague sense of irrational guilt. Glen has always felt bad about a big chunk of his heart belonging to someone who wasn't his wife, but now it's so much worse. In this moment his feelings for J.D. are taking over and he fears what kind of husband this makes him, and worst of all he can't find any desire in himself to stop feeling so intensely about his old love.

If only he could leave the hospital bed and go into another room, just for a few minutes to think about all of this.

In the next five seconds, Glen's stress levels rise so high and so quickly that his monitor gives off a few warning beeps. It's impossible not to notice.

"Woah, are you okay?" J.D. immediately reaches forward to touch his face, then frowns at the monitor and back to Glen. "Are you breathing right?" His hand then shifts to Glen's chest, to feel it expanding and receding and to make sure he's getting enough air.

"I'm fine," he insists, unable to resist an amused smile. Though he's also surprised that modern medical technology essentially has access to his emotions now, and vaguely concerned for his privacy. Of course he doesn't know that his stress was at physically unhealthy levels, or how odd it is for it to rise that quickly. And then, as suddenly as the thought comes to mind, "Kiss me again."

Though he did it just a couple minutes ago of his own accord, now J.D.'s thinking that he shouldn't. He has a wife and two children— _and_  Elliot is probably even relatively close by, seeing as she works at St. Vincent's with him now. Technically, it would be cheating, but... somehow this feels different? Like it should be okay. This isn't some man or woman he's meeting in a bar and then having sex with in some motel, or another doctor he's flirting with on the side. This is someone he's had conversations about with his wife. Someone he's got an almost-history with.

So he does, and Glen kisses him back harder than before, like he's putting all of his effort into it. So much effort, in fact, that it depletes him. He doesn't have much energy to begin with, so the kiss gets exponentially softer as it goes. Eventually J.D. can hear the monitor beep to let them know Glen's stress is back at healthy levels, and subsequent blips that indicate it disappearing altogether.

When he can tell that Glen is literally about to just fall asleep, J.D. pulls away.

"I promise you're not a bad kisser, I'm just old. And sick."

"I'll be back tomorrow," he promises, standing up. "Maybe before then. Get some sleep."

* * *

 

As promised, the doctor returns the next morning—now without his beard.

Glen's mouth quirks open as soon as he sees him, but J.D. preemptively interrupts.

"For the record, I did  _not_  shave it because of you—apparently, Elliot secretly hated it." He then frowns and has a brief flashback of the conversation he'd had over dinner last night:

" _...And pretty much the first thing he said to me was about my beard. I mean yeah, it makes me look different, but he_ hates _it. Crazy, right?"_

_Elliot nearly choked on her food. "Uh... haha yeah well... maybe it's not_ that _crazy..."_

Glen notices the glazed-over look that J.D. gets in his eyes for a few seconds and finds it just as stupidly charming as he used to. A middle-aged man and he still daydreams. Granted, Glen is an  _old_  man who still daydreams.

"Eh, I changed my mind—you were right," he tells him. "It does make you more defined."

He's not serious (the stubble he's down to is much better), but J.D. can't know that for sure. So he frowns again.

He's about to ask Glen why he never grew any facial hair (because frankly it would look good on him) when the man in question registers his mention of Elliot and remembers exactly who that is.

"Wait, you married blonde doctor? Damn. How's that going?" When J.D. gives him a vaguely dirty look, he adds, "You two  _were_  off and on for years..."

_Like you don't have your share of dysfunction,_  he thinks. "Well, we haven't broken up-slash-made up since I left." For a moment he wonders if the absence of the janitor from his life had anything to do with it, but he dismisses that thought faster than most. "'Bout fifteen years married, I'd say that's pretty good. We had another kid—I mean, aside from the one I already had. With Kim."

Then something occurs to him, and he pauses, unsure of how to proceed, and just looks Glen straight in the eye until he raises a questioning eyebrow.

"Uh, I probably should have mentioned this yesterday, but it just, ah... slipped my mind, because of the shock—I named my daughter after you, I really hope that isn't weird?" J.D. holds up his hands defensively, even as the other man starts to smile. "I mean, you know, it's  _Gwen_ , not Glen, since there's no girl equivalent of Glen and Elliot didn't want her daughter to have a boys' name like she does, so... yeah. I don't know why, man, I just—I didn't think you were ever gonna have kids and you were kind of a constant in my life for a long time and I figured you deserved some kind of a legacy, so... ugh, okay, I don't need to justify myself anymore. There it is."

Honestly, Glen is deeply touched that J.D. was sentimental over him enough to do something like that. But it manifests as him staring blankly for a moment and then a monotone-delivered "That was so goddamn sappy. Get over here right now so I can give you a noogie."

"A noogie?" Jesus, he hasn't even heard that word in  _years_. "Are you thirteen years old?" Some dementia  _is_  common in liver cancer cases, but Glen's janitor days were filled with immature pranks. This is just a sign that he hasn't changed.

"C'mon, for old time's sake." He's serious, which is not a surprise.

J.D. instinctively backs up. "What if I don't want a noogie? You can't get off the bed by yourself."

Glen immediately deadpans: "I can projectile vomit on command."

J.D. naturally assumes it's a lie.

It's not.

Either way, he decides to go and allow himself to get noogied, if only for "old time's sake." He almost misses the daily humility in his life, actually.

When the doctor is standing close enough, Glen hooks his arm around his neck and vigorously rubs his knuckles on his head. He also purposely messes J.D.'s hair up enough that it stands up all stupid-looking like it used to, just so he can see it again.

And then right as J.D.'s standing back up and smoothing his hair back down, Glen motions violently for the bucket because he actually  _does_  have to vomit.

Allowing his patient some dignity in his pain, J.D. pointedly looks away for a few seconds until he wipes his mouth and grunts out an "I'm fine." Which is only  _somewhat_ of a lie—he's been an alcoholic for years, throwing up isn't something he can't handle, but doing it in front of J.D. is painfully embarrassing for him.

He then sits down with Glen, still trying to get his hair as smooth as it was before, and eventually giving up.

"I, uh—I would ask if  _you_  had any kids, but your file says you don't," he starts, trying to get back into the conversation. "Did you never want any?"

"I dunno, maybe," Glen sighs. He tries to sit up a bit straighter. "I always wanted a kid just for the fun parts—getting to name them something cool, teaching them taxidermy, genetically modifying them, you know. But now... I dunno, I'm just not sure if I ever woulda made a good dad." For a moment he feels weird, saying that out loud, but hiding that tidbit about himself just seems useless. "Doesn't matter, anyway. Lady can't have kids. and we can't afford to adopt."

What J.D. immediately thinks is that  _They could have named their children Son and Daughter, ha_.

But what he  _says_  is, "Where is Lady, anyway?"

"Oh, she's coming later."

"Well—" he takes a moment to glance at Glen's file—"I have your first radiation therapy scheduled for 2pm today, so if you want to make sure she's here for that I can call her—"

"No, I'd rather be alone for that," he almost snaps, sounding vaguely bitter.

Oh. "...You sure?"

"I'm a big boy, I don't need someone to hold my hand."

Frankly, he  _is_  bitter. And a little angry. Glen hates this—being in pain, having things stuck in him and on him at all times, taking so much medication, needing a nurse just to help him get up and go to the  _bathroom_... and he's not even close to death yet. Worst of all, he did this all to himself, and he knows that if he  _does_  get to that point... well, it'll all be his fault.

All J.D. can do is try not to look like he's pitying him. As though on cue, however, a nurse comes in right then to bring Glen a breakfast tray—she smiles, sets it down, and looks curiously at the Chief of Medicine for a moment before she leaves. He doesn't blame her. It must seem odd, him sitting on the edge of a patient's bed like this. Especially when there's other things he should be doing.

He briefly wonders if the hospital staff has been gossiping about "Dorian and that new patient he seems really close with..." Of course, if they haven't been, they will be soon. Hospitals  _thrive_ off drama.

As the nurse leaves, Glen scowls down at his tray of badly cooked eggs and sausage.

"It's 2024, and hospital food still isn't halfway decent."

"I'll get you a muffin," he offers, standing up. "And then I actually have to get back to my job."

Glen's suddenly upset that J.D. has to leave, and he doesn't exactly hide it.

"Isn't your job  _being my doctor_ , though?"

"Well, as Chief of Medicine, I don't usually take over individual cases. In fact—I really  _never_  do," he admits, blushing a bit. He fails to notice Glen blushing as well. "Anyway, I have paperwork and other doctors to supervise and a meeting and whatnot. I'll be back for a bit before your radiation starts, though."

Glen harrumphs in resignation. And as J.D.'s about to start walking out, "I'm sick of muffins, at least get me some granola bars."

"Okay."

He then stops himself before he can leave and steps back, bends down, and gives Glen a parting kiss—on the forehead this time, since he threw up a few minutes ago and he'd rather not kiss him on the mouth for a while.

* * *

 

For about an hour, Glen flips through channels on the hospital room TV. Nothing stays on for more than a few minutes at a time, as he decides it's all crap way past his generation (why can't comedy be like it used to? why don't the classics play anymore? why does the world have to keep on moving without him?).

Eventually he gives up and simply leaves it on one of the Law & Order spin-offs, but it doesn't get terribly far before the door opens again.

It's not J.D., and it's not a nurse or anyone he remembers having been in the room before, but rather a blonde doctor who's now grinning at him— _wait_.

"Oh—shit, hey, Blonde Doctor! I mean—Elliot. Wow."

If not for the whole situation with suddenly seeing J.D. again after fifteen years, he wouldn't have recognized her. Not because she looks terribly different or anything (which she actually doesn't) but because she just wasn't that important in his old life. His sort-of-rebound-crush on her had been short-lived, and he only found out earlier today that she and J.D. ended up married.

"Yeah, I know, right?" She's giving him a look of awe similar to what he and her husband shared yesterday, though more enthusiastic. "J.D. told me you were here... God, I can't believe we haven't seen you in over fifteen years. You look so old—I mean, shit, no offense. Really, I actually have a thing for older guys—not to say I have a  _thing_  for you, I mean, have a husband—of course you know that. It's J.D. I think he has a thing for older guys too, actually, since he had that thing for you. and you had that thing for  _him_ ,  _oh my God_ , I still can't believe it, I mean you bullied him really badly and  _all that time_ —"

"Hold on, he told you about that?"

Glen would have had to stop her regardless, as she's talking too fast and it's a bit overwhelming.

"Yeah, of course," she tells him with a sympathetic smile, then pauses to sit down on the end of his bed. "I'm not jealous, if you're worried about that. You  _did_  have a crush on me for a while, too. But I guess it wasn't as deep. I mean, you were  _in love_  with him, right? But now you have Lady, and that's so sweet, but oh god, so tragically romantic, it's like a soap opera... Wow, sorry, I have five extra caffeine shots in this coffee. Not enough sleep last night.  _Anyway_ , how are you?"

He kind of wants to ask if it's safe for her to be functioning on caffeine alone as a doctor, but he decides against it. He's still pretty floored from all that Elliot managed to say in merely thirty seconds, too, so it takes him a second to form a coherent answer.

"Uh, well, other than the liver cancer, I'm fine, I guess. Not too excited about spending the next month or so in a hospital." He knows she probably meant something more along the lines of  _what's going on with his life_ , but there's not much more Glen would be comfortable telling her, honestly.

Elliot raises an eyebrow. "Not even with J.D. as your doctor?" Glen stiffens at once, and she notices. "Yeah, I know you're not over him, and yes, he told me, but I would have known anyway. I have that... woman's intuition thing. So you might as well just tell me everything."

He won't, though. In fact he can now hear a subtle ticking of his stress levels increasing, and despite being the doctor in the room, Elliot doesn't seem to notice.

"So you don't mind." Somehow he never expected she would be that type of person.

"Like I said, not jealous," she assures, scooting a little further up the bed. " _Actually_ —if I had known about your crush on J.D. back then, and  _he_  knew, and we also both knew about your thing for me—you know, without you tricking me into a date—I would've been down with the idea of a relationship with all three of us. Too bad you were... well—"

"Crazy?" he suggests with a sort of grimace.

"I wouldn't say  _crazy_ —"

"No, I was. I was needed-daily-medication-crazy. Didn't start taking any until around the time J.D. left, though."

The way Elliot looks at him then is almost like pity, so he looks away and stares at the TV for a moment instead.

"Having a mental illness wasn't your fault," she tells him. "I mean, it's not exactly an excuse for all the weird bullying, but—"

"Save it, I've already gotten the talk from my therapist. I'm fine now. Is it weird that I kind of miss the way I used to be?" Sometimes he misses it so much he forgets all the bad parts and just stops taking medication, and then gets into a bad place for a while until he remembers the reason he went to therapy for so long to get help.

"I'm sure it's normal." Then for a minute Elliot just looks at him, frowning slightly like she's scrutinizing him, and Glen gets the feeling she's trying to figure out what he must have, so he gives her a look with which he means to give her permission to ask.

She understands, and bites her lip before guessing—"Bipolarism?"

"Borderline, actually. And some other issues, I'm pretty sure. Working with chemicals for all those years definitely did  _something_. And I guess I'm already just pretty weird to start with."

Elliot doesn't seem to know what to say after that, so she just nods in agreement. The silence continues for several seconds, and they both just zone out into different directions, until finally she stands up.

"Oopsie, I need to get going. Technically I'm not even supposed to be taking a break right now, hah. It was great seeing you again, though."

"You too," he says on impulse. And then, before she can turn around, "And for the record, I wouldn't have wanted a relationship with both of you anyway. I've, uh—I tried that kind of thing once. Relationships with more than two people just don't ever work out."

For the first time in years he thinks about Mike and Fallon, and he wonders if what he just said is actually true. Those two were already falling apart, so who knows, maybe it would have been different with Elliot and J.D.

It doesn't matter, though, since he never would have had a chance to find out.

"Oh. Well. Still, too bad."

* * *

 

After seeing Glen off to radiation therapy (which actually is part of his job and not just self-indulgence), J.D. stops at one of the hospital cafes for lunch. He means to just grab a sandwich and take it with him to his office, but as he's paying for it, he glances—and does a double-take—at the adjacent Starbucks, and notices Lady sitting at one of the tables.

Without a second thought, he crosses over.

"Hey Lady—" All of the nearby women immediately look up at him, at which he figures he should have thought that through. But the actual Lady sees him and smiles and waves him over, so he doesn't have to stand there in embarrassment.

"Aw, why'd you shave your beard?" she asks as soon as he sits down. "I liked it."

"Well, my wife didn't," he half-lies. By omission, that is. But then she smiles knowingly and he suddenly feels no reason to defend himself, so he shamelessly adds, "Neither did Glen."

"Mm. It makes sense. Oh—also, reception told me he's in radiation. Do you know how much longer that'll be?"

"It should be pretty quick, actually. He'll be done and medicated and back in his room in about... twenty minutes."

"Well perfect, that should be enough time for us to talk."

J.D. frowns. "Talk?"

"That  _is_  what you sat down over here for, isn't it?" Lady tilts her head and raises an eyebrow and for a moment looks a  _lot_  like Elliot. "You're the Chief of Medicine, you have important stuff to do. I can only figure you sat down with me because you want to talk about Glen."

Wow. She's good. Or really she just has basic critical thinking skills, which J.D. often lacks in non-medical situations.

"Oh. Well, yeah, I guess I do have some questions."

Lady leans forward and takes a drink of her iced coffee. "Shoot."

"Okay—you obviously know about... you know. Those eight years, when he..." She's gonna make him say it. "When he was  _in love_  with me. And you gotta know about how he kissed me before I left, and how—fuck, we kissed just yesterday—and he's still in love. With me. And I... I guess I definitely still have something going on myself, which is obvious—my point  _is_ : You're totally cool with everything. Not that I mind, which I don't, because that's amazing, but  _how_? I mean, if Elliot were still deeply in love with someone else..."

"I don't have a problem sharing his heart, I guess," she shrugs like it's no big deal. "I genuinely just want him to be happy. Crazy, I know. I have to tell him every day because even he doesn't believe me one-hundred percent."

"So you don't get jealous?" It's honestly so foreign of an idea to him.

"Nope. I don't think I have a jealous bone in my body. Besides, it's not like I ever had to worry about him leaving me—yes, I suppose I was the second choice. But I was also the beginning of him moving on. You were unattainable and pining after you was hurting him, and from what I could tell, he was finally trying to be  _happy_. I'm proud that I was able to do that for him."

"...Damn." He can't think of anything else to say—that, and his mouth is mostly full of sandwich.

"Yep. And you know what, at the end of the day he was always coming home to me anyway. A lot of the time to talk about you, but I was happy to. Glen had a lot of problems and I wanted to help. After about... five? Six years? Around there. I realized he probably wasn't ever going to be completely over you. He, well, he mentioned you less and less over time, but it never stopped. I didn't mind, I promise. But... well, I've just always thought it was sad.  _Not_  pathetic-sad—definitely not that, but I just always wished he could move on completely, you know? He was really trying. He's a good husband. He loves me. He even feels bad when he accidentally talks about you for too long. You wanna know something? The first few months or so of our relationship was Glen trying to make you jealous. He didn't tell me until we were already married, but... honestly, if it had worked, I would have been fine with that."

Jesus Christ.

It's almost too much. J.D. feels like he shouldn't even be hearing this, like it's too private—but if it really was, Lady wouldn't be telling him. And yet... knowing all this now puts a heavy sense of responsibility on him. He feels so bad.

The more she tells him, the more guilty he feels. For the most part, he couldn't have been expected to understand that Glen had even had positive feelings for him at  _all_  at the time... but in retrospect, he had been stupid about some things. And regardless, he just feels bad that he never realized.

Turk already told him about how "the janitor" left Sacred Heart the day after he did, and it  _had_  vaguely occurred to him that it had been out of heartbreak. But according to Lady, it was so much worse.

Glen had had a near mental breakdown. He'd coped so badly with J.D.'s move to St. Vincent's that he'd convinced himself it was just a vacation. He'd gone home that day and immediately said he wanted to move. If one thing was going to change,  _everything_  had to change for him to feel right.

He hasn't even stepped foot inside a hospital since he left Sacred Heart—until now.

"Amazing coincidence you came here, huh," J.D. says. He can believe that Glen never actually realized what hospital he moved to, but the  _chances_  that they would end up here...

"Actually, uh." For the first time in this conversation, Lady seems hesitant to tell him something. She's wringing her hands around her empty cup of coffee and looking awfully guilty—but she seems to get over that in a second. "I came here on purpose. Glen doesn't know—don't tell him, I mean  _I_ probably will at some point but I'd rather him hear it from me. I just... I thought he deserved to see you again, and he definitely wasn't going to do it himself."

"But... now you kind of just made it even more impossible for him to get over me," he muses aloud, frowning.

"Yeah, I know. He's really happy right now, though."

"And you just re-opened old wounds. When he leaves it'll be even worse." On some level he understands, but he doesn't accept it until Lady says it out loud—

"I'm afraid that he's not going to have the chance to leave. I... I just don't know. There's a huge risk, isn't there? He could die."

With that, she stares at him, gaze and breath heavy, as though she expects him to confirm or deny. He finds it odd that Glen's  _wife_  is more comfortable thinking about that possibility than he is.

J.D. merely looks down, and that's enough of an answer for her.

"If these are his last weeks, I want them to be as happy as possible for him."

"You guys have been married for like,  _sixteen years_  though—you obviously have a great relationship. Shouldn't you be enough? I can tell he loves you to death."

_Is the possibility of death a good enough reason? Is seeing me really worth ruining him?_

"Well, yeah, but you're the love of his life."

She says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world, then leans forward and touches his hand. J.D. can't help but feel like—let his mind run wild, that is—she's giving him a gift. Not just any gift, but an award. She's a military official and he's a soldier and she's awarding him a pin of honor, and the honor in question is  _to be loved so deeply by Glen Matthews_.

Lady loves him, so she must understand. And to know how Glen feels about J.D... she must think highly of him, knowing what it means to be worthy of love like that.

In his fantasy, Lady salutes him, and hundreds of other soldiers do the same. He looks down at the pin and feels as though he doesn't subjectively understand its worth as much as everyone else does, but he objectively knows it's important. He has to take care of it.

By the time he's back in reality, Lady is no longer sitting with him, and he's saluting at an empty chair.

* * *

 

"For the last time, I'm not jealous."

It's been a week since J.D. took charge of Glen's case, and he hasn't stopped talking about it at home. Particularly not to Elliot. Not even when they're lying in bed together.

J.D. promptly shoves the blankets off and sits up. He can't articulate properly when he's horizontal.

Elliot immediately sighs and sits up with him. "J.D., we're middle-aged. See this?—Wait, it's dark, you probably can't—but I have  _crows feet_. That's how old I am. Point is, I'm mature enough to not be scared of someone dragging you away. Even if he is in love with you."

"But it's more than that," he half-groans. He's avoided telling her the full truth the past several days, but he  _does_  have a strong moral compass, so he knows he can't hold off for too long. "...He kissed me. No, that's a lie, I kissed him. But he clearly wanted me to. And... now I kiss him pretty much every time I visit him, it's just become a  _thing_ , and I just think he deserves it—"

"So it's like... you're doing it as a charity thing?" Elliot frowns, but she doesn't actually seem upset.

"Well, a little bit,"—It would be the easy way out of this, he could play it safe and not have to stop—"but not really. Seeing him again is just... bringing back old feelings? I don't even know. I definitely wasn't ever  _in love_  with him, nowhere close to how I feel about you, but—I don't know," he repeats, feeling deeply guilty. "I like kissing him. That doesn't mean I don't like kissing you, though. I swear I still love kissing you—"

"You  _better_." She gives him a serious look, and for a moment J.D. is terrified, but then she looks like she's about to laugh. "I'm kidding, oh my God, I know you do. And you know, there's a difference between being in love with someone and just loving them. So... maybe that's it. Knowing you, you probably also feel a little obligated..."

_Wow, she_ really _knows me._

_Wait, of course she does, she's literally known me for twenty-three years._

_And I've known_ her _for twenty-three years, so why didn't I expect this exact scenario?_

"You're not mad?"

"Well, I'm a little frustrated, but no one's perfect."

"So..."

" _Yes_ , I'll give you permission to keep kissing Glen. As long as you don't stop kissing me.  _Also_  as long as you talk about him a little less before bed so I can get some damn sleep."

Fair enough.

* * *

 

The longer the radiation continues, the more irritable Glen gets. It's making him bloated and nauseous, and the medication to help for that makes him sleepy—and also gives him a headache if he doesn't eat enough. But the nausea makes him not want to eat, and hospital food is gross anyway. It's a terrible cycle.

He's sleeping an average of fifteen hours a day now, even on the weekends when he's not having any radiation contact, so there's limited time that J.D. can keep him company. Especially with all of his responsibilities as the Chief of Medicine.

The time that he does spend in Glen's room, he can't help but notice the man's discomfort despite how much he tries to pretend he's okay. (Of course, he doesn't exactly try to act less bitter than he is.)

"Getting a donor liver is still possible," J.D. reminds him for the umpteenth time. "It wouldn't even be too risky."

He's met with the same gruff answer Glen's given him at least once every day he's been here: "I don't want a stranger's organ inside me."

Every time he sounds slightly more pissed, and this time J.D. finally decides he should stop asking, or else he'll probably get yelled at.

The first time he asked him, Glen just seemed sad.

_"They checked Lady when we first got here. She isn't a match."_

_"And you don't have any family?"_

_"...I got a sister, but I haven't talked to her in years. Shit, I dunno if she's even still alive. She wouldn't want to help me, anyway."_

J.D. also got himself checked to see if he could donate a part of his liver, but sadly, he also wasn't a match.

Technically an artificial liver is also an option these days, but it's not considered a part of general healthcare and there's no way Glen could afford one.

He knows J.D. must think he's stupid for refusing a donor, especially when he doesn't even have a religious or believable moral reason, and maybe he is stupid—but frankly, Glen prefers the option where he stays here longer.

He can't even find it in himself to feel too bad now that Lady admitted to him that coming here was no accident. She might as well have handed J.D. to him on a silver platter.

It's just like the old days. Or as close as he can get. Why wouldn't he want that?

Elliot comes by a few more times, and she's good company when J.D.'s too busy—hell, she might as well be a female version of him. He can't understand why they were always breaking up.

Though when he asks her, she gives a pretty simple and obvious answer: "Because J.D. was an idiot."

She seems to have changed more than J.D. has in the past fifteen years, but it also looks like it's for the better. Meanwhile Turk also comes and visits, just once to see with his own two eyes that " _wow, it really is the janitor_ ," and as far as Glen can tell he's the exact same person as he used to be. Granted, he never actually knew him too well.

"You know, I used to see that guy as competition," he admits to J.D. once his friend is gone.

"Really?" J.D. says as an impulse reaction, though it honestly makes sense.

"Yep." As the memories come flooding back, Glen almost immediately grimaces. "For a while I actually thought you two were together—I could never be sure... And then even if you weren't, I always figured he was proof you weren't straight. Just. The way that you looked at him..."

_It was like the way I looked at you when you weren't looking._

Now he kind of wants to shoot himself. This was a horrible idea and he shouldn't have brought it up.

"Well, Turk's one-hundred percent attracted to women," he says with an awkward laugh. "We're best friends for life, but not that way. I swear."

Not that J.D. would have ever had a problem with it. He's always known that he was capable of loving men, but Turk is outright repulsed by men's bodies. It's a little too bad, actually.

Glen should feel relieved, but all he's really getting out of that is that he wasted a lot of his time. Which is actually not too bad of a feeling now—he's come to terms with the fact that he can't get those eight years back. In fact, he doesn't even regret them too much anymore. Now that he's interacting with J.D. again and even kissing him on a daily basis... does it really matter?

Damn, now he's getting reminiscent. And he just really wants to tell him about all the things he never had a chance to say before, because, well... now he  _has_  a chance. He wants him to know.

"I was really jealous of Elliot, too," he decides to say, and J.D. is a little startled at the break in the silence. "That's probably obvious. But I was  _really_  jealous—God, I was so mad that I started liking her just to spite you. Can you believe that? I might as well have still been in high school."

Except, ironically enough, he never did anything like that while  _in_  high school. He was too busy with work to ever really be a normal teenager.

J.D. doesn't know what to say, but it doesn't matter—Glen has more to get off his chest:

"You just... you had so many girlfriends and I just got angrier and angrier about it every time. I wasn't even that angry at  _them_ —I was just mad at you, and... I hated you for not liking me back. But that doesn't make any sense because—fuck, how were you supposed to have any idea I liked you? I guess—I guess... what I'm saying is. Or what I want to say—I hurt you a lot and I'm sorry."

Neither of them expected that he would actually apologize for all the things he did in the past. Especially because Glen doesn't  _honestly_  feel guilty, considering how many years have passed and that no lasting harm was even done. Mostly he just feels sorry for himself, and how his failure to form a good relationship with J.D. had been almost entirely his fault.

"Well, at least it all makes sense now," he says. Glen assumes that means he's accepted the apology. "I spent a long time after I left wondering exactly why you bullied me so much... mostly why you kept breaking my scooter. You know you caused me almost five thousand dollars in damage over the years?"

"To be fair, the whole scooter thing was really dumb. You could have just gotten a car, like a normal person."

"Doctor salaries aren't as much as you think, and I saved a lot of money by—"

Glen just thinks J.D.'s huffing is so cute, and frankly he wants to get off the subject so he doesn't have to think about it anymore, so he grabs him by the lapels of his white coat and pulls him down for a kiss. The doctor gives a muffled harrumph of annoyance but otherwise relents.

It lasts longer than most of their kisses—minus their first upon reuniting, of course. What with the radiation therapy and all the medication he takes and just his age, he generally doesn't have enough energy for much more than a minute at a time.

But here he is, fist tightening into J.D.'s coat, somehow summoning the strength to pull him in deeper. And for a moment he seems to forget where he is because his lips leave J.D.'s and press to the side of his mouth instead, and then his jaw—and he only manages to get one more kiss on his skin before J.D. pulls away and clears his throat.

"Glen..."

"Sorry." Looks like he's apologizing a lot today.

"If you weren't sick—"

"I wouldn't be here."

"You know what I mean."

All he really has permission from Elliot to do is kiss him. If he comes home with a hickey, he feels like there's an equal chance of her laughing and yelling at him. Best not to risk it.

Glen feels a sudden wave of self-loathing and all-around bitterness at the fact that he's stuck in a hospital bed, but he objectively understands. It's just not possible. It gets him to thinking, though— _would_  he? If he'd met J.D. again some other way, and he was perfectly healthy, would the guy be willing? Would Elliot give him permission? Would he even ask for it?

While he never stopped being in love with J.D., a lack of interaction with him for so long eventually knocked out most of the sexual desire towards him. And of course he's actually been having a fair amount of sex with Lady during their marriage. But now that Glen has spent a couple weeks around him again... he's remembering all his old fantasies.

He's only mildly ashamed of how much he thinks about it. He perfectly understands, though, that he can't have it. There is, at least, a comfort in knowing that J.D. is still a little attracted to him.

"Eh, I don't have the energy to kiss anymore anyway. I exhausted myself." He really did. He's trying to hide it now, but he has to fucking catch his breath. Being old and having cancer is terrible.

"In that case, maybe you should sleep," J.D. suggests, secretly relieved that Glen alleviated the awkwardness himself.

Honestly, he doesn't want to. He wants to keep talking, and he wants J.D. to stay, and for a moment he even considers returning to the conversation they were having. He could easily bring up the fact that there was yet another person he was violently jealous of and that it was  _Cox_ —

But as soon as he thinks about the potential ensuing conversation, he retreats from that idea. Old Glen probably would have been ruthless, but he has more sense and compassion now. J.D. really doesn't need to know that his deceased (as Glen learned the other day) mentor had a thing for him once.

"Fine," he grunts, sinking grumpily into his pillow.

And a moment later, J.D.'s giving him a goodbye kiss on the cheek and he's  _blushing_.

Ah, the dual nature of man.

* * *

 

The spend a lot of time in the next several days talking about old memories. It keeps their minds off the tumors in Glen's liver (which show no sign of shrinkage yet) as well as the fact that he could be getting that surgery and leaving this place any day now.

Really, it's no different than how Glen used to be. Terrified of change, always keeping his mind occupied, generally incapable of even conceptualizing more than a week into the future... And here he is, actively living in the past. He's hung up on memories and it's all he wants to talk about—J.D. doesn't mind, either. He's kind of the same.

Admittedly, it might get in the way of things. Twenty-three years of being a doctor, and five of being a Chief of Medicine, and J.D. still has trouble coping with certain situations.

During one visit, he abruptly stops while looking through Glen's most recent x-rays because something far more important and easier to dwell on has come to mind:

"Hey, remember that time you locked me in a water tower for a whole day?"

For a moment Glen is in disbelief that anything like that ever happened, but then it occurs to him exactly how wild he used to be.

"Oh, wow. Yeah. I can't believe I did that." For the life of him, he honestly can't remember what he was thinking or how he rationalized it at the time. "I did have a phase in my whole...  _thing_ for you where I was kinda homicidal. Oops."

"Yeah, oops," he laughs.

"...Damn, I really could have killed you."

It's not like he never thought about it before, but if J.D. had ever actually died due to one of his dumb pranks... fuck. Glen has no idea what he would have done with himself, other than that he might have literally jumped off the hospital roof.

J.D. is having none of that death-related talk, and he immediately tries to lighten the mood.

"There was also that time you hung me up like a flag. What even was that? It wasn't even bullying—it was just weird."

At that, Glen laughs. While definitely influenced by parts of his mind that are no longer there, it was one of his better, more convoluted pranks. It just reminds him exactly how obsessed he was.

"I spent a week planning that one," he tells him proudly. "Oh—yeah, I remember now. It was really just... an excuse to hug you? Well, kind of. I think at some point I started to make a game—what's the most complex scheme I can come up with in order to touch J.D."

"You could have just walked up and hugged me," J.D. points out. "I would've been way more confused."

"Well, the point was to be very  _complex_. Like—like that other time, when you, um, you... yeah, you put a tracking device on me? Or—no, you made me swallow it. And I waited for an opening to sprint and bodyslam you."

J.D. almost can't believe that he went through all that trouble just to touch him so briefly. He also can't believe that anyone could even be that desperate for him... Damn, he's been insecure all this time for nothing.

And now they're both trying to remember all the times that Glen managed to land a pseudo hug on him, or grab and grope him, or do something otherwise secretly intimate—

"Hold on—you stole my dick piercing!" J.D. exclaims in actual surprise, turning and staring accusingly. Meanwhile the realization is only just now dawning on Glen as well, and his mouth quirks into a slightly guilty smile. "Oh my God, you  _did_ , and I just completely forgot about it because I was more worried about getting a new bed because you set mine on  _fire_ —holy shit, I can't believe you!"

He's obviously not mad, though, so Glen just grins and laughs again, and then he remembers: "Oh man, I still have it, too. Not with me, but, y'know. At home."

At that, J.D. doesn't know whether to be flattered or slightly disgusted.

"Well, you can keep it, I don't want it anymore... And FYI, it got infected after you took it. Don't laugh, it's not funny!"

Thinking back, Glen's pretty sure his old self had a vague hope that J.D. would confront him about the missing piercing and that a relationship between them would ensue. Though part of him is unsure, now, that a relationship with him was what he even wanted, after a point. A few years in, pranks having escalated from harmless to homicidal... he'd gotten used to the dynamic. He was only ever on J.D.'s radar when he was messing with him.

"There was also that time," J.D. remembers once they're done laughing, "like, after I'd only been there for a few months—you kissed me, didn't you? Yeah, you got me under the mistletoe. Shit, I thought that was just a prank at the time..."

"Don't apologize," Glen cuts in preemptively. A few days ago he might have said  _"You should be,"_  but he thinks he's at the point of full forgiveness. "That was—wow, yeah. That was the first kiss I'd had in over three years."

"Wow."

J.D. immediately wonders whom (or what) his last kiss before then must have been with. And then he imagines Glen tentatively kissing one of his taxidermied squirrels.

His wild imagination is quickly interrupted by yet another memory—

"Hey—did I ever give you a blowjob in a supply closet, or did I just imagine that?"

"Pretty sure you imagined it—I did walk in on you jerking off once, though." And now it's coming back to him rather vividly.

"Damn."

_Nice._

* * *

 

Through all their conversations about the past, Glen slowly slips out of his good mood. He becomes less nostalgic and more... resentful. And then eventually, all at once, it drops straight and deep to regret.

There are just... so many things. He did everything wrong in the past and he's inevitably even got a skewed memory of it, and though the last few weeks have been perfect, it's all overshadowed by a heavy feeling of grief. Suddenly all the whimsical parts of those years are gone and all he can see is the end of his life, close up ahead.

"I hate this," he says aloud, in more of a broken whisper than anything. Only because he knows Lady is the only one who can hear him.

"I know, Glen," she tells him soothingly, squeezing his hand. "I hate it too."

"I always thought I would die in some cool,  _intense_  way... I dunno. Maybe I'd get shot or I'd get eaten by a shark or... I'd get chopped up to bits in a helicopter propeller." Lady snorts a laugh, and that cheers him up a bit. "Except... I guess I never really believed it. I just  _wanted_  it, y'know?"

"No one wants to die slow," she agrees.

"But I don't  _deserve_  it!" he snaps, immediately sorry. But now he's breathing fast and he feels like he's going to cry and he just can't stop being  _angry_... "I guess—I used to think I did, fuck, I used to feel terrible for all the shit that I screwed up, but you know what? A lot of what I screwed up was  _me_. So many things went wrong in my life and I just—I don't deserve..."

Lady puts her hand in his hair and his ragged breathing starts to smooth out. He closes his eyes and tries to control himself, to keep from tearing up—but he can't. Not completely. His lip won't stop twitching and his chest is convulsing and tears are slowly filling up his eyelids until he can't see. It's all he can do to hold it in—until his wife kisses him on the forehead and wraps her arms around his neck. Then he's gone.

"I'm sorry," he half-sobs. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

"Shh... It's okay."

But it's not. He can't even see her properly and he can tell that she's starting to cry, too.

And then, softly, he admits, "I'm afraid to die." He then tries desperately to compose himself, but merely succeeds in wiping his face. "It's more than just  _how_  I'm gonna die, Lady. I... I've lied to myself. I'm not as indifferent to my mortality as I always thought I was. I'm sure I said a lot of shit about just—Valhalla, and Nirvana, or somehow achieving immortality, but... the truth is, I don't know.  _I don't know, and I'm_   _terrified_ , Lady, I can't deal with this, I don't want to die, not feeling like  _this_..."

Feeling guilty, that is. He thought that he stopped for the most part, but it's come roaring back because now he can't stop thinking about how different things would be if he was having this talk with J.D. instead.

He can't decide anything for sure, but he does know one thing: J.D. would be telling him not to worry. J.D. would be telling him that he wasn't going to die, and that nothing is ever one-hundred percent, that he could pull through... J.D. wouldn't have already accepted this.

And maybe that's because Lady's far more sensible, but what he could really use right now is some irrationality. Possibly even some nonsense. At this point, he wouldn't mind if she outright told him that he "should have thought about that before drinking himself to death." He almost wants her to be angry, even. Anything but this perfectly healthy display of coping.

"For what it's worth, I love you," she mumbles against his hair. "And I'll never stop missing you... God, I promise I won't. I just hope bringing you here wasn't a mistake—fuck, I'm so sorry, I had no idea you weren't genuinely okay with mortality, and if getting you back with J.D. made things worse then—"

"It didn't." Glen immediately shifts to look at her, partially in disbelief. After all this time, she's still so focused on that. It's as heartwarming as it is disturbing. "I promise, it didn't."

He kisses her in place of an "I love you too," and in that he feels like he's forgiving her as well. For not knowing how to help him, that is.

Later, when their tears are dried and Glen is trying to avoid reality with evening television, J.D. comes in. He's not in scrubs, but rather normal clothes—which means he's off-duty, here strictly as a friend. Or whatever they are to each other.

Lady looks relieved that the man who  _can_  help her husband is finally here, and offers to leave them alone for a while.

* * *

 

The day they take Glen home is surreal. Like J.D.'s simultaneously noticing everything and nothing, too vividly and also utterly vague.

They leave the hospital at 9:09 exactly. The sky is the same shade of blue as Glen's eyes. There is a significant, almost painful, pressure in his hand.

Meanwhile he can barely even remember  _being_  in the hospital today. His own eyes glaze over the people around him, even his own wife, as though he barely recognizes them. And he feels like he's somehow skipped over the past few days—or slept through them.

It's probably just a really off mood, considering everything. All that's happened in the past month... J.D. doesn't want to let go. He's grown extremely used to the daily visits, the conversations, the memories—and he's not going to lie to himself, the kisses. Sure, they can keep in touch, but interaction just won't be as natural anymore.

God, he's going to miss it.

He's relieved to see him standing on his own, though, wearing normal clothes, no tubes or monitors or any of that. The first thing Glen does, in fact, is take a breath of outside air and grin at him—and then gives him a noogie.

"I finally feel like my old self again," he announces, though it really just seems to be for J.D., as he's probably the only one around who can really look at him and  _see_ the man he used to be. (For a moment, he's almost certain that he's back in his old janitor clothes.)

He acts on a whim and slaps Glen's ass before they get in the car—at which Elliot gives him an odd look, and J.D. can only assume that the deal is over: Glen is no longer sick, so anything that resembles a relationship between them can't continue. He understands, but he's no less disappointed.

The ride is oddly quiet. Glen doesn't appear to have much to say, and Elliot is almost  _deathly_  quiet ( _damn, is she still mad?_ ), and J.D. is too overwhelmed to make conversation. Eventually, however, he has an idea that would make this farewell not so bad.

"Hey Glen, do you think you might want to get lunch first?" he asks, making eye contact through the rear-view mirror.

"It's been a while since I had a real lunch—yeah, why not."

Glen grins, but Elliot lets out a soft gasp before turning to him with a look of extreme concern.

"J.D... do you know where you are?"

That's a weird question—of course he does, he's in a car, and he's driving—

Oh. Wait, no, he's in the passenger's seat. And Elliot's the one driving. Stopping, actually, as she seems to be pulling over.

"J.D.," she repeats, looking closer at him now. "We're on our way to Glen's funeral. You know that, right?"

His head suddenly hurts. So does his hand—twice as much as it did before. God, why does it hurt so much?

It stops, though, once he looks down and catches sight of what he's wearing, now able to take it in. A suit. He's wearing an all-black suit.

In a slight panic, J.D. twists his head around and sees that the back seat is completely empty, but for some bags.

"Oh. Right."

Of course that's what they're doing. He remembers now.

He remembers noticing something wrong with Glen's x-rays—the radiation made his condition even worse and they didn't detect it until it was too late.

He remembers staying with Glen all night, even as he slept. Lady on the other side of the hospital bed, holding one of his hands while J.D. held the other and talked him through the emotional pain.

He remembers the death-grip Glen had on his hand as he begged him to promise that he would survive and be as good as new tomorrow, and he remembers that everyone in the room was crying.

He remembers the voice of a nurse calling out " _Time of death, 9:09am._ "

J.D. can't help but wish he could still see Glen in the back seat anyway.

Aside from himself and Elliot, J.D. recognizes a total of five of the people at the funeral.

Lady, of course. He's a little surprised to see Turk, but it only makes sense because Carla had a good relationship with Glen, and she drags him along to everything. Ted, the lawyer from Sacred Heart, showed up as well. Man, he hasn't seen that guy in ages. And then the last he doesn't recognize until the man comes up to ask how he's doing these days—Bob Kelso. How he's even still alive, there's no telling.

And then there's people who must be a part of the life Glen had after Sacred Heart. Mostly coworkers, he gathers. Only a couple good friends, and J.D. has a hard time believing that those people  _really_  knew him.

Did  _he_  even know him? The first eight years were mostly lies. A month of shared memories and confessions gave him an insight, but mostly just about Glen's feelings for him. It seems that J.D.'s learning far more about him and who he really was just in this one funeral ceremony.

When the attendees are asked to come up and say a few words, there is a surprising amount of people who want to say something.

First, Glen's boss from the building company he'd been a part of for the past fifteen years. He talks about how loyal of a worker he was... but J.D. knows that Glen just hates change. A fifteen-year streak of monotony comes as no surprise.

Then a couple of the coworkers, and the men who claim to be his best friends. Their parting words are so generic it makes J.D. physically angry.

Lady is the one he's actually happy to see up there. She talks about what kind of husband he was, and about all of his eccentricities, and the great things he did—like how he was a world-class hurdler in his prime and played a minor role in The Fugitive. And even the parts of him that weren't so great. Like how emotionally unstable he used to be, and how he hit a lot of dark places but always came back from them.

Carla very nearly takes the stage, but she backs out of it. After that several people are looking straight at J.D., expecting him to go, and he suffers through a full minute of emotional turmoil before someone else walks up instead. A tall woman from the back whom he didn't notice before, though she looks oddly familiar.

A moment later it makes sense why, as she starts off saying that "I'm Beth Matthews. Glen was my older brother."

_So this is his sister._

"Most of you probably have no idea I even existed. Please, don't blame Glen. I shunned him from my life a long time ago. I believe that was a mistake, now, but I cannot change the past. You probably also don't realize that I'm deaf. I have been since birth, and if not for Glen, I never would have gotten the education I needed. Our parents were neglectful and he barely got an education himself. My big brother worked through high school and even junior high to support us, and he only left to pursue a better life once I gave him permission. Afterward, he made some mistakes, yes. But when you're young and have limited experiences, you're allowed to make mistakes. I wish I could apologize for being absent from his life for so long. But... I'm proud to have known him when no one else did. And I'll always be proud to call Glen my big brother."

More than half the crowd is in tears now, though not J.D. Somehow he can't find it in himself to cry anymore. Not today.

Beth walks right back to her seat and ignores the stares. Once the raw emotion (and shock) has passed, people start looking to J.D. again, and he stands up almost without even realizing.

Looking out at all the people dressed in black is so depressing. Those who don't recognize him seem to expect another surprise like Beth's. Those who do are giving him sympathetic, encouraging looks. It doesn't help him at all while he thinks of what to say.

There's a point where it occurs to him that he's been standing on the stage for over a minute without saying anything, so he finally clears his throat and holds the microphone up to his mouth.

"I'm John Dorian, uh—everyone calls me J.D., though. Glen was... my patient."

The people who don't know him then dawn a look of understanding, followed by more confusion. Especially as he stands there in silence for a few more moments.

Should he tell all these people that Glen was in love with him? That Glen expressed that love by tormenting him for eight years, and that his wife brought him to his hospital so they could rekindle their not-relationship?

Part of him feels like they should all know, like it's just not something he can neglect to say now... But he knows Glen well enough to know he would want that to stay private. If only so Lady wouldn't be questioned about the legitimacy of their marriage or any of that.

He clears his throat a second time.

"He was also the janitor at the first hospital I worked at. I accidentally dropped a penny in a door once, and he picked on me every day for eight years after that." A few people actually laugh, and then J.D. is able to smile, too. "He was also my friend. We were something else, too, but... I don't know what. He was a weird guy. I guess that, like a lot of you, I knew some stuff about him that no one else did... Glen was like that, I guess." For a second his heart is in his throat, but he manages to swallow it. "But I think I speak for all of us when I say he was unforgettable."

J.D. pauses, now trying to summon the rest of the final speech he intended this to be, but he can't. He feels like he's been struck in the chest.

So he leaves it there, and steps down, ready to go home and fall back into a state of complete shock. Or get wasted.

As he looks out at the people clapping, though, it occurs to him how lonely he always perceived Glen to be. And how one of the personal things J.D.  _had_  been privy to was Glen's worst fear: being forgotten and unimportant.

All those people care about him, whether they truly knew him or not. They're never  _ever_  going to forget him.

J.D.'s still going to get drunk. He's still internally wrecked and he's probably going to cry a lot, and in a few years when he feels that Gwen's ready to know everything about her sort-of-namesake, he'll cry again. Because he's just that kind of person.

But he'll sleep a little easier knowing that Glen's life meant more than he ever believed it would.

**Author's Note:**

> The goal of this story was to have complete closure between J.D. and Glen--really, to give Glen Matthews's character all the development he deserves. 
> 
> And also, of course, to end the Untold Janitor Story for good. There's no better way to finalize a character's story than to kill them off.
> 
> Seriously, I needed to get this done. Now I can finally bring an end to Scrubs ruling my life and move onto a new show. (Probably Psyche.)


End file.
